Source: New York Times
By DONALD G. McNEIL JR.
Published: December 8, 2008
A major limitation on journalists covering global health is the cost: getting to a story can mean airfare to Africa or Asia, hotels, Jeep rentals, satellite phones, translators, sometimes even armed guards.
Meanwhile, many news organizations are cutting back.
Now the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which [...]

Source: Wall Street Journal
9/12/08
By JEANNE WHALEN
LONDON — The fight against malaria, one of the world’s biggest killers, has just gotten a booster.
An experimental vaccine has shown promise in two studies in African children, who account for the majority of the more than one million victims that malaria claims every year. Published online Monday in the [...]

Dec 4, 2008
LONDON (AFP) — The govenment announced 10 million pounds of emergency aid to help tackle Zimbabwe’s cholera crisis Thursday, while denouncing President Robert Mugabe as leader of a “failed state.”
The pledge came as Zimbabwe pleaded for international help after declaring the epidemic that has killed over 560 people a national emergency, and admitted [...]

Source: VOA News
By Jessica Berman
Washington
04 December 2008
Health officials say aggressive efforts to vaccinate young children against measles have resulted in a 74 percent global decline in the number of deaths due to the illness. Experts say the biggest decline, 90 percent, occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean region.
Global health officials say that from 2000 through 2007, [...]

Source: MarketWatch
Last update: 7:00 p.m. EST Dec. 4, 2008
LONDON and PHILADELPHIA, Dec 04, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ — - GSK CEO marks 10th anniversary of drive to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) with donation of one-billionth albendazole tablet and grant to The Carter Center
In a meeting today with former U.S. President and founder of The Carter [...]

Source: AFP
3 December 2008
DAKAR (AFP) — AIDS activists urged Western donors Wednesday to keep their pledges to a fund to fight the disease amid fears that the global financial crisis could hurt the campaign.
“Already we are missing billions of euros in funding and the current financial crisis means that it could become more difficult to [...]

Source: WHO Press Release
Lack of medicines in public sector forcing patients to pay high prices, finds new study
Low availability, high prices keep essential medicines out of reach: WHO study
1 December 2008 | GENEVA — An alarming lack of availability of essential medicines in the public sector drives patients to pay higher prices in the private [...]

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2008) — Universal and annual voluntary testing followed by immediate antiretroviral therapy treatment (irrespective of clinical stage or CD4 count) can reduce new HIV cases by 95% within 10 years, according to new findings based on a mathematical model developed by a group of HIV specialists in WHO.
Authors of the study also [...]

(Adds remarks on new class of drugs, new paragraphs 9-14)
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Nov 28 (Reuters) - HIV infections could surge if countries pinched by the global financial crisis cut AIDS prevention programmes, a United Nations agency said on Friday.
Paul De Lay, a senior official at UNAIDS, said that economic turmoil was a threat to development [...]

Source: ScienceDaily
Nov. 28, 2008
An international team of biochemists has discovered how an experimental drug unleashes its destructive force inside the bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB). The finding could help scientists develop ways to treat dormant TB infections, and suggests a strategy for drug development against other bacteria as well.
A report describing the research, led by [...]

29 November 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The World Bank Saturday urged industrialized nations to maintain aid flows to developing nations to offset an expected decline in private capital flows to emerging markets due to the credit crisis.
“Over the past year, many developing countries have already had to cope with high food and fuel prices, and are [...]

By Susan Watts
BBC Newsnight
Aids hopes of SA’s new health minister
The UK is to give South Africa’s new Health Minister Barbara Hogan £15m to help combat Aids in the country.
Ms Hogan was appointed health minister in September to help shake up a health service in crisis.
South Africa has one of the most severe HIV/Aids epidemics in [...]

Source: Voice of America (VOA)
By Lisa Bryant
Paris
28 November 2008
A new report by UNAIDS urges countries to adopt flexible policies that reflect how and why the latest HIV infections are transmitted. The report coincides with the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. For VOA, Lisa Bryant has more from Paris.
HIV infected patients resting in a hospital [...]

Source: PharmaTimes
28 November 2008
By Lynne Taylor
Tactics used by pharmaceutical manufacturers to delay or block the entry onto the market of cheaper generics mean that European Union member states spent around 3 billion euros more during 2000-2007 than they would have if the generics had been available without delay, according to the preliminary findings of an [...]

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 26, 2008; Page A04
A strategy of testing adults every year for HIV and immediately treating every person found to be infected could virtually end the AIDS epidemic in Africa in about a decade, new research suggests.
While nobody is seriously espousing that approach, the “thought experiment” outlined this week [...]